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Instead, Mr Pickles indicated he backs George Osborne’s view that it will be necessary to scrap the top tax band to encourage entrepreneurs to create jobs, rather than seek ways to dodge tax.

‘We always said it was temporary,’ he said, of the 50p tax rate.’

■ Young people predict they will be 12 years older than their parents when buying a first home, research reveals today.

In the early 1960s, parents said they remembered buying their first home at the age of 23, according to the report from the Post Office.

But today’s first-time buyers say they do not expect to buy until they reach the age of 35. More than 50 per cent of those aged 25 to 34 say they ‘don’t think they will ever be able to afford to buy a property’.